


This is Family

by LeDiz



Series: The 48: Sonic the Hedgehog [2]
Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comic)
Genre: Coping Mechanisms, Death, Do robots dream of electric sheep?, Family, Gen, House Cleaning, Metaphors, Moebius - Freeform, Murder, Penders-era, Slice of Life, Soldiers, War, adopted family, and he's really bad at normal, but so is everyone else so it's okay, outside perspective, sonic doesn't do family very well
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-08-30 06:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8522554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeDiz/pseuds/LeDiz
Summary: Sonic was a hero long before he was a son. It didn't end up mattering in the end, but it took a long time to adjust to being both.





	1. Sharp Affection

Bernie was never completely sure how to feel about Sonic’s habit of not telling them everything.

Like every mother, she wanted to take care of her son, and she wanted to know what kind of trouble he was in. More than that, she wanted to know about his _day_ , what he did, where he went when he just disappeared. Not to mention it was always mildly concerning when he went out for a snack and didn’t come home for a week.

But, at the same time, she heard stories about Super Sonic, or the Guardian, or Mammoth Mogul, or Enerjak, and her husband was a living testament to what Eggman could do, and… and sometimes she was grateful when Sonic walked in the door after three days missing and just said, “I’m back! What’s for eats?”

Still, the injuries never failed to worry her. And, although he never talked about them or drew attention to them, she was pretty sure she always noticed them. So, on the rare occasion he had them, she always made a point to ask whether he was alright.

Tonight, for example, he was sitting forward at the dinner table, being very careful not to let his quills touch the back of his chair, and swallowing a lot more than he chewed. Bernie exchanged glances with Jules and Charles before finally giving in.

“Something wrong, Sonic?”

She wasn’t sure where he got it from, but Sonic had always been a reasonably good actor, so his shocked surprise almost looked genuine. “Me? No, I’m fine.”

“So you didn’t hurt your back on the mission today?”

His eyebrows twitched in honest confusion. “Mission? I didn’t… ohh, no. No, that wasn’t a mission. Knux and I were just messin’ around,” he said, waving the idea off with his knife. “No biggie.”

“Knuckles hits pretty hard sometimes,” Charles pointed out, watching Sonic from the corner of his eye. “He get a lucky shot in today?”

“Yeah, a couple. You gotta give him these things sometimes, y’know?” He smirked, lifting a forkful of his dinner toward his mouth. “Make up for all those months he was useless. Make him feel worthwhile and all that.”

Despite himself, Jules scratched his head, and Bernie closed her eyes in slight exasperation. No matter how long she knew her son, she wasn’t sure she would ever get used to the casual way he treated and teased some of the most powerful figures of current times.

“Still, attacking a hedgehog from behind, especially you,” Charles chewed slowly, making a point of eyeing Sonic’s quills. Unlike most hedgehogs, including his own family, Sonic’s quills weren’t only sharp at the point. He somehow hardened them into thousands of tiny blades, and all Sonic’s friends and enemies knew that. It didn’t matter how tough Knuckles was – he wasn’t stupid enough to try and punch Sonic in the back.

“Ah, yeah. It was a kick,” Sonic shovelled in a mouthful of dinner, and then another for good measure, in the hope they wouldn’t understand his next statement, “’i’na ’oe um oh’ i ’en’ illff.”

Bernie and Jules were lost, but Charles had taught Sonic how to talk, usually through a mouthful of chilli dogs. “He broke some of your bent quills?” he repeated incredulously, then frowned and cocked his head, confused. “While I know the annoyance of tangled quills, broken ones don’t usually hurt that much.”

“They don’t,” he agreed. “It’s kinda uncomfortable when it happens while they’re all stiff and sharp and all, but not really painful. It’s when they break and an idiot echidna’s boot rams them point first into your back that kinda stings.”

Silence met this statement, but Sonic didn’t bother looking up, more interested in his dinner. “They’re kinda hard to get out when you can’t reach ’em, either. No way I was telling Knux about this, Tails’d freak out on me (or laugh, and either way I’m not riskin’ it), Rotor’s claws wouldn’t exactly help a lot, and this is so not something you can ask a girl to do. I asked Antoine to do it once, a couple years ago, and he totally panicked, thinking my quills’d stab him or something, and this was back when they were short, so, y’know, why tempt fate. So I was just gonna head down to the river tonight, sit under the waterfall a while, get ’em out with water pressure like last time. No biggie,” he repeated, then shrugged and continued eating, oblivious to the stunned silence around him.

Eventually, Bernie’s fork hit the plate with a loud clatter, and he finally looked up.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“I…” she began, but then stopped, before trying again, “You –” That didn’t work either, so she turned to Charles. “You –!”

“I combed his quills after every bath, he didn’t learn this from me,” he said firmly, holding up both hands defensively.

“What?” Sonic repeated blankly.

“Putting aside the…” _stupidity_ “…risk of infection in what you were planning to do,” Bernie said, rubbing her forehead. “How long ago was this fight?”

“Uh… five, six hours?” He shrugged again, gesturing to nothing. “I feel fine otherwise.”

“Five _hours_?” Jules clarified. “You’ve had them there for five hours and didn’t tell anyone?”

Sonic straightened slightly and stared around at them all, apparently noticing their horrified looks. “It’s no big deal. Seriously, once they’re out, I’ll heal up in like a day.”

“How did they even get to the point of being bent so badly?” demanded Bernie. “It’s basic quillcare to –”

“Mom, chill. I’ve been taking care of stuff like this for a while now,” he said, raising his hands. “Remember? Only hedgehog in the village for ten years? Doctor wasn’t too happy treating me when I didn’t match the precedences he had on record? It’s okay.”

That, he realised only a second later, had probably not been the smartest thing he could’ve said. Bernie’s hands both slammed against the table, pushing her up so violently that Sonic instinctively shoved himself back, only to hit the back of the chair and feel the broken quills push another few millimetres into his back. He hissed before he could stop himself, and Bernie pointed at him.

“Jules, restrain your son!”

“ _What_?!” yelled Sonic, and he was too busy being shocked to react when Jules did as instructed. “ _Hey_!”

“Sorry, kiddo. She scares me more than your recklessness,” he said, gripping Sonic by both arms and, despite Sonic’s high speed squirming, effortlessly removed him from the table.

“Recklessness? It –! I – there is so seriously a law against what you’re doing right now!” he cried, as Charles calmly removed the dinner dishes.

“Not yet,” he said, and Sonic yelped as Jules planted him face-down in their place.

“Hey! What the heck are you –” He trailed off as he looked up to see Bernie rummaging in the first-aid drawer. “Oh, come on, I’m fine! I don’t need… what is that?”

“Iodine.”

“Oh, heck no!” he shouted, bucking and struggling all the harder. Unfortunately, his father’s robotic strength rivalled Knuckles’ natural, Chaos-imbued power, and as Sonic had been reminded today, his speed didn’t do much to compare against brute strength once he was pinned down. “No, no, no, I ain’t touched that stuff in five years, I ain’t –! Uncle Chuck!”

“I’m with your mother on this one, Sonny,” Charles said pointedly, as he and Bernie climbed up onto the table to kneel over Sonic’s back. “This wasn’t one of your better moves.”

“No kidding. Last time I tell you guys anything!” he snapped, then grunted as Bernie pointedly pushed his head into the table. Although she moved his headquills aside in the movement, proving there was a point to it, he got the distinct impression she also did it to shut him up. “Seriously! Laws! Against what you’re doing! To your _son_! Hey!” he added in a yelp, as he felt them sorting through his backquills.

“Holy canole, Sonny, how’d you hide all this blood?” Charles murmured, and Sonic rolled his eyes.

“And people wonder where I get my ability to exaggerate.”

“Okay, I see… oh, my… I was only expecting one or two!” Bernie whispered, before leaning over to frown at Sonic where he could see. “We are going to have a very serious talk about healthcare when this is over.”

“This isn’t serious? What the heck’re you going to do to me when it is? The rack? Suspend me over boiling pits of oil?”

“And quillcare,” Charles added. “It’s a mess back here.”

“Oh, give me a _break_! I use them to smash ’bots for a living! Dad, would you help me out here?”

“I got both lectures during the Great War, son,” Jules said, his tone sympathetic. “Multiple times. If I had to suffer, so do you.”

“Misdirected revenge is way past uncool, Dad.”

“Alright, I’m going to take out the first one,” said Bernie.

Sonic grit his teeth, preparing himself for the pain and concentrating on not letting his quills harden. He had enough guilt issues without accidentally skewering his family, even if they were committing something akin to child abuse.

It didn’t take too long, though in Sonic’s opinion, they spent way too long fussing over the bleeding it apparently caused. He couldn’t see what it mattered – fur and quills hid that sort of thing pretty darn well, and a hot shower would clean it out anyway.

But, he admitted silently to himself, his back did feel a heck of a lot better once they were done.

Either way, he made a point to fold his arms and fix them all with a scowl the moment Jules let him go, tapping his foot in irritated silence as Charles returned his glare with a disappointed look and Bernie disappeared into the bathroom.

“Now, Olgilvie,” she said loudly, deepening his scowl but also letting him know she was still angry too. She reappeared from the bathroom holding a very long, thin, but strong-looking comb. “This is a quillcomb. You comb your quills with it. Every week. You do not _ever_ —” She rapped it against his forehead, hard. “—let _your_ quills, which harden to diamonds blades and cut through steel, tangle and bend back on themselves where they can get at your unprotected back!”

“I’m pretty sure you can get arrested for attacking a universal hero,” Sonic muttered mutinously, only to get whacked on the head again.

“Turn around!”

“Mom, I am not –”

“Jules?”

“Oh, for the love of…” Sonic spun in place, now glaring at their abandoned plates, until he felt something touch the very top of his quills. He stiffened at the sensation, then blinked as it started moving downward, shifting and sorting his quills into shape, stirring almost-forgotten memories.

Most of his memories of the original Mobotropolis were of the castle: playing with Sally, sneaking into places they shouldn’t have gone, listening to adult conversations they didn’t understand. He also remembered his Uncle Chuck’s restaurant, and chilli dogs, and a few special days, like when Chuck gave him his shoes and tried to explain how they worked. He remembered every second of the day Robotnik took over.

But this… He felt his shoulders relax, and absently grabbed a chair from under the table to straddle, barely conscious of what he was doing. He was also vaguely aware of Jules chuckling, and a definite smug feeling radiating from his mother, but he ignored them both, caught up in the feeling of gentle hands and a strong comb.

He remembered this. Quiet nights, every Sunday, with a fire burning and the promise he would get to play with Sally and Antoine tomorrow. A bath first, of course. ‘Remember to wash your ears, Sonny.’ Objecting was half the fun, but secretly… secretly…

He felt his eyes closing, his head drooping forward despite himself, and dragged both arms up to fold them over the back of the chair, laying his head against them.

“I wish it had worked like that when he was four,” Charles said dryly, folding his arms over his chest. “Thirty seconds and he looks about ready to fall asleep!”

“It’s all in the wrist,” murmured Bernie.

“The mother’s touch,” Jules added conspiratorially.

“I am still very angry at all of you,” Sonic mumbled, but doing anything more than lifting one finger in threat seemed like far too much effort to add.

Bernie just smiled fondly and shifted her fingers through the lax quills under her hand, smoothing them back down with the comb.


	2. Soldier

They couldn’t blame him for the mood, though the… violence of it was both shocking and surprising. Sonic could sulk—his parents’ first few days of meeting his teenage self knew that very well—but the sheer… vehemence of his hatred for… _everything_ …

He’d lost people before, and they knew he’d lost Sally before, too.

But this was different.

Charles thought, and most people seemed to agree, that it was just the breaking point after too many bad months. Truth be told, Sonic hadn’t been having a good year, with few wins and too many bad breaks. And this, after everything he and Sally had been through lately, was just too much.

Jules thought it was the return of the robotocisor, though he didn’t tell anyone but Bernie. Sonic had spent most of his life fighting that thing – while he hadn’t made much of its end, they knew it had bolstered him through a lot of bad stuff.

His friends varied between confused and resigned. Tails said they were overdue for a Sonic-mood, while Antoine demanded to know how Sonic could be so selfish when people needed him in Sally’s absence.

Knuckles had kept silent, watching Sonic with intense eyes, and Bernie wondered…

“Idiots,” Sonic muttered as he slammed the front door shut behind himself. “Giving away their… don’t even know why… Elias…”

His family watched as he stalked through to the kitchen, slamming cupboards and snatching materials to make a sandwich.

He hadn’t eaten a chilli dog yet, even when Charles made them special.

“Bad day, son?” Jules asked finally, and Sonic switched his glare from the tomatoes to his father.

“Chalk another one up for the end of New Mobotropolis,” he said shortly. “If anyone asks, I’m not here.”

“Even one of the boys?” Bernie asked mildly.

There was a rush of air that Bernie had a feeling was Sonic swearing hard and too fast for mobian ears. Jules’ slightly increased frown almost confirmed it, but they said nothing until Sonic finished making his sandwich and started stalking toward his room.

“Tell Tails I’m out running and ask me if I care what Knuckles thinks,” he snapped, but stopped when Charles grabbed his arm on the way past. “What.”

He just gazed at him for a long moment, only speaking when the seconds made Sonic’s eyes narrow dangerously. “You’re a good man, Sonny,” he said quietly. “Don’t let this break you.”

“Let _this_ break me?” he scoffed, and yanked his arm away, staring a little wildly.

And there, for a brief second, Bernie saw it. Everything.

But then it was gone, as Sonic’s expression shut down again, and he just shook his head and pushed past his uncle, slamming the bedroom door behind him.

“Son,” Jules said, standing, but Bernie set a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down as she stood up.

“Leave it be, boys,” she said. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

They frowned at her, confused, but she ignored them and followed her son into his bedroom without a word. He glared at her as she entered, but she didn’t acknowledge it, just shut the door behind her and then moved to the end of his bed.

“I’m fine, Mom,” he said coldly, but she didn’t meet his gaze, shifting her weight into almost-forgotten patterns.

Then she snapped.

“Lieutenant-Captain Bernadette Hedgehog, Second Division, Reconnaissance Guard. With all due respect, Sir, you will acknowledge,” she rapped out, shooting off a salute so clean that Sonic was actually shocked out of his glare for a second. She fell into ease and stared straight through him to the wall behind. “Coistrel Hedgehog, acknowledged.”

“Coistrel?” he repeated. “You feelin’ okay, Mom?”

“It’s another term for man-at-arms,” she explained, relaxing. “You forget, Sonic, I was a soldier. Fighting a grand war.”

“The Great one, I heard,” he said mildly, but she felt a little success in that he seemed more wary than furious. “You gonna tell me to man up and serve my king without complaint, or something?”

“Hell no,” she said, and he actually smiled a little, amused by her curse. She sighed and perched on the end of the bed, raising her eyebrows. “I fought for King and Country and lost a husband and thirteen years of my life. I’m not going to tell you to do anything for duty. You’re a much better patriot than I am these days.”

“I’m thinking about defecting,” he said darkly. “If Naugus ever gets the crown, you better believe I’m going for regicide.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said bluntly. “Treason, I don’t doubt. But you’re not a killer Sonic. Take it from someone who is.”

He stared at her for a long few seconds. It was a lot longer for him. “…What do you want, Mom? I don’t want to talk about what happened.”

“I’m not asking you to. I want to do the talking.” She tilted her head, watching his closed expression. “Did anyone ever tell you what I did in the war?”

“No,” he said, then blinked and added, “No… no one ever talks about you. Just Dad, for bringing home Robotnik, and Uncle Chuck, for making the robotocisor.”

“Legends looking for someone to blame,” she noted, then lowered her eyes to the bedspread, smoothing it under her fingers. “We were a recon team. Our job was to get Chuck in where he could analyse the Overlander technologies. We weren’t supposed to be seen, and if we were, no one was supposed to report us. Your father favoured talking. I was a good shot.”

Sonic slowly put down his sandwich and set it aside, obviously intrigued. She wasn’t surprised – her current House Wife persona didn’t match the soldier she’d been. She had always been very good at separating the war from her world.

“When we weren’t doing that, we were at home, talking peace. We tried to convince others that the Overlanders just wanted peace, and if we tried hard enough…” She trailed off, scratching her nails over the bed spread. “You get your tongue from your father. He could talk so well. Convince a blind man to play piano and a deaf one to review it. The only person he couldn’t talk down was me, and that’s why he married me.”

Sonic snorted despite himself, and Bernie smiled sadly.

“The night he died—and don’t you dare try to tell me otherwise, our family knows better than anyone that he shouldn’t have lived—we’d just left Mobotropolis after a rally for prisoner rights. There was a movement to kill Overlander prisoners, and we were arguing against. We were big politicians in the rights movement,” she added dryly. “But when I saw that laser go through Jules’ eye… I didn’t see another living creature, worthy of compassion or fair rights. I didn’t even see a monster that had shot my husband. I saw the enemy, in plain black and white, and I saw a clean shot.

“A second later, I saw a monster. I saw him fall and I thought to myself ‘good’ and ‘serve him right’. But at the time, I wasn’t thinking as a wife or a lover, I was thinking as a solider, because that’s what I was, and my teammate had just been shot, and our recon team had been made. I did my duty. And then I went home and thought… ‘to hell with duty, I know where I could place a bomb and blow up the entire Overlander city’. My husband was dying and someone should have paid for that,” she said, then shook her head. “Two things stopped me, and I wish I could say one of them was you. But it wasn’t. One was Jules – I couldn’t leave until I knew how it would end. And I received orders. I received orders to stay in Mobotropolis and for some reason I don’t understand anymore, I followed them.

“Then… Jules was… And Julian was a _liar_. Jules had saved him and Julian…!” She slammed her fist against the bed, clenching her eyes shut for a moment before continuing. “We had never been anything but loyal to the crown, Sonic, and look where it got Mobius. Look where it got _us_.”

“You gonna blame Eggman for everything, or just everything up to that point?” Sonic asked, quietly challenging. “Because I got some news for you if you’re still blaming him for everything.”

“I’m not done with this story, Sonic.”

He tilted his head, and she finally met his gaze again.

“Thirteen years passed me by in eight and a half minutes, because that was how long it took for my memory to reboot. And then Chuck showed me footage of my son. My glorious, super-hero son, and I hated him for it. I hated everything. I didn’t want that life for you. I didn’t want you to fight. I didn’t want you to have to live with the choices you made because you were a soldier.” She didn’t reach out. Didn’t try to touch him. “You’ve done better than I did, for much longer. I broke after only a few years, and you’ve managed sixteen. If you have to break now, you’ve damn well deserved it.”

“I’m not breaking,” he said. “I’m just sick of it. Sick of trying to make things right and only getting them worse.”

“By whose measurement?” she asked, and stood up. “Jules died, Sonic. He should be dead, and we’re only prolonging things by not having him returned to flesh and blood. He will never kiss me. I’ll never rest my head on his chest and hear his heart beat. We wanted more kids, and despite all the years that have passed, my body froze and I’m biologically only a decade older than you. It would have been perfect.”

Sonic twitched a little, the thought not having occurred to him, and Bernie smiled. Distraction might not be comfort, but it was good enough for soldiers.

“Many people would say we have the worst of it. But I can still look Jules in the eye and talk to him. I can hold his hand, even if I can’t feel a pulse in his thumb. I will take that over not having him at all any day.”

“But I don’t have her,” he murmured, watching as she stood up again. “She’s on that side, and I don’t think I’ll be able to fight her if it comes to it.”

“So don’t. You don’t have to fight every battle for your friends,” she said. “We have the man who made the robotocisor – we can turn her back. And in the meantime, you can dodge when she fires.”

He gazed at her silently, but she only inclined her head and walked out the door, leaving him to his thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first thing that really annoyed me as they moved everyone into the happy, 'normal' world was that Bernie was a soldier, and had been implied to be a good one at that. Better than Jules or Charles, who were implied to be scouts and scientists first. Ah well. I think you can begin to tell where the lustre of Ian Flynn's writing started to wear off for me...


	3. Cousins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because Shard could have really been crazy awesome, but that doesn't immediately make him trustworthy.

Meeting Sonic again—without any desire in his circuits to kill him—was interesting.

Sonic skidded to a halt a second before hitting him, and he flinched defensively, his blaster jerking away from the Eggpawn he’d just blasted into smithereens. Sonic’s eyes narrowed dangerously, looking between him and the smoking pile of metal multiple times.

“Personally,” Shard said, just to break the mounting silence, “I blame Chuck.”

“Jack!” Larry shouted as he ran around the side of a crumbling building. “We need to get out of here before – oh. Hi, Sonic.”

Sonic’s eyes flicked to him, and then back to Shard. He grinned and wiggled his fingers in a wave, calculating the chances of him not having to start fighting for his life in the next thirty seconds. “May I introduce my teammate and field leader—don’t listen to Silver, I sure as heck don’t—Larry Lynx!”

“Um…” Larry swallowed. “This isn’t what it looks like?”

“It had so better not be, or me and Rotor are havin’ _words_ ,” Sonic said, and then stalked in close to Shard, who leaned back. Old programming died hard, and he was caught between the urge to defeat the Priority One and run away from the Model very, very fast. Sonic stabbed a finger against the jewel. “Once the city’s safe, you and me are gonna talk.”

“Sure, Sonic,” Larry said awkwardly, and pulled his mask back up his face. “After the city’s been taken care of.”

Sonic shot them both one last assessing look, and then disappeared in a wave of dust. Shard lazily waved it out of his face, then grinned at Larry. “That went great! I can hardly believe it – quick, check my motherboard to make sure I’m not malfunctioning!”

Larry just groaned and shoved at him to get back in the air. “Let’s just go before someone _else_ spots us!”

 

* * *

 

“You can’t kill me. We’re like brothers, really!” Shard said brightly, as Sonic stalked into the underground base. For a moment, Shard wondered how he’d found it, until Tails followed after him, holding a yellow device and frowning warily. Then he was just glad no one else was home to see what was probably going to be his early demise. And he’d been doing so _well_ with this hero shtick.

Sonic just stopped short a metre away, folded his arms, and began tapping his foot. “Explanation. Now. Or Tails finds out the easy way.”

“Seriously, no need for that,” Shard said, waving him down. “The easy way is me talking, and we all know I love to talk.”

“Call it a design flaw,” Tails deadpanned, and pulled out a screwdriver, so Shard decided to start talking.

“I’m not a new model! Promise. I’m the same ole’ Metal Sonic you’ve known and… well… let’s just ignore that other part… for years! It’s just that, you remember when you and Tails here were coming home from the United Federation and Metal Sonic kinda messed with your plane and kinda kidnapped Tails and kinda tied him up in a volcano and—”

“That’s it. Tails, free rein,” Sonic said, and Shard blanched, flailing wildly as he backpedalled.

“— _and Metal Sonic learned the error of his ways and all about teamwork and friendship and that being a good guy is awesome?!_ ” he cried, and Tails lowered his screwdriver, but kept glaring at him like he was trying to melt him down. But Sonic’s foot had stopped tapping, which Shard took as a good sign.

“That Metal Sonic also got melted when the volcano went off,” Tails pointed out.

“Yes. Except the head. Mostly. Chuck found me and used my programming to design the army that protected the village while Sonic was off in space and you were off pretending to cope,” he said, then cringed when that only made Tails’ hackles rise even further. “ _I mean_ , learning how to stand on your own and reaching your full mechanics’ potential on that island. Yes.”

“Nice save,” Sonic drawled.

“I know, right? When did this kid grow a spine and teeth?” He glanced at Tails, then realised he should probably get back on track. “Anyway, so a couple weeks ago, it was decided we need another Metal Sonic on the good guys’ side, and I’m nothing if not all about the redemption these days, so they rebuilt me out of my head, some old army parts, some Metal Scourge legs—and check these out, do you see the streamlining on these?—and my old power gem. Pretty sweet core, too, it’s got all the trimmings.”

Sonic and Tails exchanged dubious glances, and Shard let his arms drop, eyes as big, green, and helpless as he could make them.

“Oh, come on! Aren’t you the forgiving guys?”

“He is,” Tails jerked his screwdriver toward Sonic. “I’m kinda big on grudges.”

“And you trying to kill me every other month for the last three years kinda wore me down,” added Sonic. “Not to mention the new Metal Sonic, Silver Sonic, that creepy, cheap Metal Scourge, Rotor and Uncle Chuck’s toy army, and well, let’s just finish it off with _you supposed to be being dead_.”

“Well, yeah, but we’re like family! You can’t hate family!” he cried, flapping his hand again when that only made both of them stare at him. “What? You’re a Sonic, I’m a Sonic—”

“Ohh, the thin ice is breaking!” Sonic said furiously, so he hurried on.

“—your father is a robot, that should totally count in my favour!”

Tails tapped his screwdriver against his chin. “You know, I’ve never taken apart a self-repairing robot screw by screw, do you think it would work?”

“I say we give it a try.”

 “Okay, okay, maybe not brothers, but cousins at least!” Shard yelped, scuttling backwards. “I mean, technically speaking, if you take robot-creators as the robot’s father, then, y’know, Chuck is like, definitely my father!”

Tails shifted his weight back again, and the look on Sonic’s face was slightly less destructive, so Shard took the opportunity to consider what he’d just said.

“Well. One of them, anyway. I guess technically I have three…”

“Oh, great, just what we need,” Sonic sarcasmed. “New Mobotropolis’ first Lifetime Movie: The replicate with three daddies.” Then he stopped, and his eyes widened in a horrified flinch. “Oh. Ohh, oh, oh, no, mental image of Rotor and Uncle Chuck…!”

Shard blinked, then grimaced as the thought hit him too. “And then throw Robotnik in there…”

“Oh, dude! No! No, that’s it, you are officially not allowed to talk anymore!”

“What?” asked Tails, looking between them. “We know Uncle Chuck and Rotor built the Metal Sonic army – where did you think they came from?”

Shard opened his mouth to explain the mental image he and Sonic had stumbled across, but a swift, warning look from Sonic told him his motherboard would thank him to not do so. He shrugged vaguely and took their collusion over Tails’ continued innocence as a good sign.

“Look, if it’s any consolation, screwing with you is not in my game plan,” he continued. “I was rebuilt for the good of the _Acorn_ Kingdom, and some issues with what that means aside, I am totally on the side of good, justice and the mobian way.”

They both hit him with looks at that, so he shrugged again, this time more honestly helpless.

“I think my field leader’s a bit of an idiot and I really do dislike the whole taking orders thing, but you do what you gotta do for what you think is right, right?”

For a long few seconds, they just stared at him, before Sonic took a slow step forward (for him, anyway), and extended his hand.

“You put one rocket shoe outta line and you know I’m turning you into scrap.”

Shard just grinned and shook on it.

 

* * *

 

For all their secrecy and attempts to be the hidden Freedom Fighter group, Shard had to notice that they ran into Team Fighters an awful lot. Or, at least, he seemed to run into Sonic and Tails a lot. If he hadn’t been a sentient robot that spent his entire life defying his own programming, he might have called it fate

But at that particular point, he couldn’t care, because this time Sonic and Tails had brought Mecha Sally hot on their trail. He whistled at the sight of her. “Hel- _lo_ Princess! Seriously, I heard you were hot, but I had no idea!”

“Hey!” Sonic snapped, pointing at him. “No hitting on my robotocised girlfriend!”

“Oh, come on! She’s so not in your league anymore!” he cried. “You’ve got the cute pink chick, let me have the shiny hotness!”

“Amy is _not_ my girlfriend!” he cried, before a wave of six Eggpawns all tried to dogpile him and he got a little distracted. Shard looked back at the emotionless stare of Mecha Sally with an open leer.

She didn’t seem to mind. “You are a Metal Sonic. You will fight for this unit.”

“Only to see the way you move, sweet chassis,” he said. “How’s that song go? Flaunt it?”

He really only had himself to blame when she obliged, so fast and hard that even though he dodged, she got close enough for him to feel the power ring energy in her circuits. But he didn’t really mind fighting back.

He didn’t win, if only because Mecha Sally fought dirty when she realised he wasn’t in the least bit put off by her being a robotocised princess. She started targeting Tails, which distracted Sonic, and that whole relationship had always been a massive distraction for Shard, who just…

When Mecha Sally beat a hasty retreat, Sonic just stared after her, not responding to Tails’ insistence that they follow her. Shard, in turn, just watched them, until Elias’ voice came over his comms, ordering him back to base.

 

* * *

 

“I don’t see why you’re so hung up on the idea of me thinking of you as a father.”

“You’re a robot. I’m flesh and blood. We’re not related.”

“Psh. Whatever. Sonic’s flesh and blood, his father’s a robot. We’re just doing it backwards!”

“It’s an entirely different situation. I put you back together. I had nothing to do with your creation.”

“Details! Okay, okay, so maybe that’s true, but think about it like this: yes, Jules had something to do with his creation, but he had nothing to do with how Sonic was _raised_. Again: backwards!”

“You’re being ridiculous. I think I need to check your motherboard. Why are you so obsessed with this, anyway? What do you need family for?”

“I don’t. I just find your reluctance intriguing.”

 

* * *

 

From the moment he was brought back online, Shard knew he was a huge risk. It wasn’t just that he was, you know, supposed to be evil to these people, bent on destroying their greatest hero. He was a _robot_. Robots could be reprogrammed quite easily. Not to mention this psycho.

The Iron Queen’s laugh was just painfully grating. “Ohh, looky here! You brought me a brand new toy to play with!” she cried, swinging her staff up and over her head. “And here I thought you all knew better!”

“What are you idiots doing here?!” a voice yelled, a split-second before Team Fighters erupted from the bushes, and Sonic tackled Shard to the dirt.

“Us? What are _you_ doing here?” Silver demanded.

Elias grunted dismissively. “Forget it – team, take her out before she gets to Jack!”

Shard rolled his eyes and would have both objected and shoved Sonic off, but before he could, green and black light filled his vision and Sonic shoved his face back into the dirt. Just for that, he took a few moments to listen to the virus and debate whether payback for this injustice would be worth the endless diagnostics and possible reformatting Chuck and Tails would put him through.

But no. Her instructions were boring and cliché. So he just tapped his fingers impatiently and asked, “So… you plannin’ on gettin’ off me any time soon, or should I just power down for a nap?”

Sonic’s grip shifted slightly. “Wha – you’re still y- let me rephrase that. You’re not – well, you’re still not trying to kill me?”

“Not _today_ …” he said, and lifted his hand—which was about the only thing he could move—to cycle it lazily. “Besides, you’re being way too literal. My plan was always to defeat you, which usually meant handing you over to the doc’. Killing you would have been a bonus that probably would have gotten me melted down. Wait, hold on…”

“Yeah, that worked out real well for you, huh?”

“Oh, nice, hit a guy while he’s down.”  But Sonic did let him stand up, at which point the queen shrieked, distracting them all long enough for Shard to cough out a mouthful of dirt, dust himself off, and look up at her with a pleasant smile. “Yeah. So you know how most robots don’t fire on the living unless they’re controlled by evil? I’m not most robots.”

Even though she dodged, her scream while she did so was _really_ satisfying.

 

* * *

 

Later, Shard scowled again, tapping his foot and hating everything as Tails poked at the circuitry in his chest. “We had to do this in front of everybody? You guys have no respect for robotic dignity. I call flesh-ism.”

“Shut up or I turn off your voice chip,” Tails said vaguely.

“Flesh-ist! Discrimination!”

“Shut up or I take out your power gem,” Sonic suggested, and Shard shut up. He could turn his chip back on. The power gem was a little more of a big deal.

“Power gem aside, I’m not seeing any signs of power ring energy,” Tails said thoughtfully as he straightened up. “By rights, you should have been easy pickings for the Iron Queen.”

“Please. I already have three main directives running around my motherboard,” he said, slamming his hatch shut. “And hers were way too lame to add to my collection.”

“Three directives?” asked Silver, and he shrugged.

“One: defeat Sonic the Hedgehog,” he said, counting them off, “two: destroy Doctor Eggman and protect Knothole, three: defeat Sonic the Hedgehog turned green. I assumed that meant Scourge, by the way. Crazy techno-mage’s orders weren’t anything new or interesting, so…”

Now everyone stared at him. Silver suddenly had that _look_ of his that meant he was about to point fingers. “You… you still have that programming?”

“Sure. No one ever reformats anymore. When was the last time you spring-cleaned your computers?” he asked Tails, who just blinked back.

“But that means… you… you should still be following Eggman’s orders! You’re either double-crossing us or him!” Silver cried, and Shard gave him the look such a point deserved.

“Wow, you’re right. Come to think of it, robots have three laws, don’t they? Where is my human master? I can’t operate without his directives! Warning! Imminent shut down due to existential crisis!”

Sonic rubbed his temple, Tails’ eyelids lowered to half-mast, and Amy sighed, but none of them said anything while Shard’s team just exchanged glances.

“This is something to do with how you decided not to kill Sonic way back when, doesn’t it?” asked Elias, and Shard shrugged.

“Or it could just be that all three of my origin models are based on this guy’s design,” he said, jerking a thumb at Sonic. “I don’t know if you noticed, but there are definitely some glitches in his software.”

“Hey.”

“Lighten up, guys! I’m built from the original Metal Sonic, the Knothole army, and Metal Scourge, all of which were based around the concept of a robotic Sonic the Hedgehog with no devotion to the Freedom Fighters. Which is basically a loose cannon with no direction. How’s life without the Freedom Fighters working out for you, by the way?” he asked, but when Sonic’s expression immediately shut down into a glare, he moved on. “Then, on top of that, I have three main directives that contradict each other. So I don’t really have any choice but to make my own way!”

“That doesn’t explain why you let me and Sonic escape way back when,” Tails pointed out.

“Meh. I had no directive about you. I could save you if it meant Sonic didn’t defeat me.”

Tails continued frowning, though he switched his glance to Sonic. “That does sound like an argument you’d make,” he said, and narrowed his eyes. “He’s right, you do have glitched-out software.”

Sonic silently cuffed him upside the head, then whacked Shard even harder when he laughed.

 

* * *

 

Later that night, he came out into the twilight of their camp to see Sonic and Amy talking quietly. He considered adjusting his audio processor, but instead decided to just wait it out.

It didn’t take long, and when Amy left, Sonic noticed him almost immediately, and sighed softly before moving back to join him. “Stalker much?”

“Call it masochism. Comes from my glitchy base model,” he said cheerfully, and Sonic glared at him.

“What do you want?”

He hesitated, then coughed and gestured for them to move a little further away from camp. Sonic followed him but raised an amused eyebrow. “If this is an attempt to kill me off –”

“Please, like I’d bother with subtlety now that you semi-trust me. I’d just shank you mid-battle and take off.”

Sonic blinked, then smiled. “At least you’re honest. Ish.”

“Yeah, well, speaking of honesty… I’m still working out how sentient I am,” he said, tapping his head meaningfully. “Like I said, I still have the directives in here, and Chuck hasn’t been messing with my motherboard, so I honestly don’t know why I’m playing nice for you people.”

Sonic folded his arms into his head quills, just looking at him thoughtfully. “There was a directive about Tails, wasn’t there?”

“If I could get rid of Tails, permanently, you wouldn’t just splinter off from the kingdom and refuse to follow orders anymore. You wouldn’t fight Eggman for the greater good. You’d fight everything and everyone. Sally stopped you. Tails would destroy you.” He made a point to meet Sonic’s gaze as he added, “What remains of Metal Scourge in me remembers a conversation Metal Sonic 2.0 overheard. Scourge’s offer. You hesitated. No Tails, and one really bad day… you would have given him the answer he wanted.”

Sonic didn’t visibly react, though his life signs were spiking something chronic, and Shard’s chaos readings were thrumming like mad. But eventually, Sonic just raised his eyebrow again. “So why didn’t you take him out when you could have?”

“Because it’s one thing to know something. It’s a whole other thing to see it. I want to understand it.” He looked down, then cupped his power gem, his fingers tapping the crystal softly. “I thought this team might… I thought getting to know Chuck would… I don’t understand it. I don’t feel what you feel. How sentient can I be if I fight alongside these people, protect them, talk with them, but don’t… need them?”

“Why do you protect them?” he asked, and Shard shook his head.

“I don’t know. It would be so easy to destroy them! To return to Eggman, triumphant, and tell him what you’ve been doing! I’m more powerful than that Metal Sonic hack he’s using. More than any of these pathetic sub-bosses he has! I’d have power, control, everything!”

“But you’re still here,” Sonic noted.

“But I’m still here!” he echoed. “If I’m you, without your devotion to a team, then why am I staying with _this_ team? Why do I want to redeem myself? I don’t have a Tails to fight for. The hot girl is on the evil team. The only explanation is that I’m not actually sentient, I’m just programmed to think I am and I’m programmed to want to be good!”

“Yeah, because Uncle Chuck would totally go out of his way to program both that and your sparkling personality,” he deadpanned, then raised an eyebrow at Shard’s look. “Look, dude, think about it. If you were just programmed with personality, like every other Eggman robot out there, then Queenie would’ve totally had you cornered. Heck, Monkey Khan’s an actual cyborg with a mobian heart and he doesn’t have a chance against her. But you did.”

Shard tilted his head back, and Sonic shrugged vaguely.

“Like you said earlier: you still have that evil programming. You choose to ignore it. Maybe that’s a glitch in your robot brain or whatever, maybe it’s that gem in your chest, maybe I’m just so awesome that anything based on me has to be too. Who knows?”

He frowned, but then stopped, thought about that for a second, and grinned at him sideways. “Did you just call me awesome?”

“No. You’re hearing things,” he said, but he was smirking. “Tails should check your ears.”

“Whatever you say, cuz’.”

“I will break you.”

“You wouldn’t do that to _family_!”

“So not dignifying that. Going to bed,” he said firmly, but Shard kept grinning at his back.

“Thanks for the pep-talk, cousin! My bolts feel all tingly!”

Sonic just groaned and disappeared into his tent.

**Author's Note:**

> The 48 are a collection of unfinished and/or pointless fics saved to my hard drive, now posted to Ao3 for people's interest or in case they want to adopt them.
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I think the whole 'normal teenager' arc of the Archie comics was a bit lame, which is probably why it never went anywhere. But while Penders may have bought into his own hype and become an idiot, he wrote some interesting characters and concepts. Back in the day, I was really into exploring them. Still - all things considered I didn't like the direction Flynn ended up taking them, so it's probably for the best that they're all gone now.


End file.
